ZenTea

I was emboldened by my earlier success to go ahead and try the other teas from this company. This one I chose because the description noted almond in the addition to the fruits. A quick search yields that it is being sold under the name Pearl of Fruits by a couple of other retailers.

The dry leaf smells pretty much like generic tart fruit candy. I can also get a fairly distinct orange note from it, but not much else. Steeped, it has definitely mellowed, and now I do get a light nutty aroma joining the fruit (which is not so much orange now, more berry-ish). The flavor is pretty pleasant. Is it an almond/fruit blend that can stand up to Dammann Freres or even Harney’s Boston? No. But it’s drinkable, which is good. I’m not sure which “exotic” fruits are supposed to be in this—the description just mentions berries and orange—but they are melding together in a way that is difficult to tear them apart. I was hoping for maybe a bit of florals but I am starting to think I should know better with this type of tea; the fruit flavoring completely obliterates any florals that might have been. There is definitely a nutty, marginally marzipanny almond to this, but it doesn’t seem to work perfectly with the fruit flavoring, and kind of sticks out a bit. I can’t really taste much of the tea base, for better or worse. Overall, not a complete failure (like the unfortunate “Jasmine Lemon”/Macabeo), but not one I’d reorder.

I suppose it is time to start working on sipping down some old teas in my stash. Starting with this one! I remembered that I only had a bit of this left, so I decided to make it a sipdown. I used a bit more leaf (but it is quite old), and hopefully left behind the tea crumbs in the bottom of the bag. I also looked at some old tasting notes that mentioned a bit of bitterness in this, so I went full green tea with my steeping temp.

It seems to have worked pretty well. Nicely almondy, no bitterness. Not much interest from the base teas either, but it’s hard to win with a black/green blend. Nice to finally get this one out of my cupboard, it’s been in there forever!

An old tea, and one I always underestimate. This is a really almondy tea, perhaps the most “almond extract/marzipan” tea that I have ever come across. It doesn’t have much else going on: it’s almond, and that’s enough. I do wish it wasn’t a black/green blend… it’s kind of unnecessary and makes proper steeping difficult. As such, there were hints of bitterness playing around the edges here, but the sweet almond was enough to overwhelm them.

I have very little of this tea left (perhaps only one more serving), and while I don’t think it will be a restock it is worth noting if you like almondy things.

I wanted to try this tea again since it has been a long time since I last had it. The last time I was pleasantly surprised but I wished it was an all black tea instead of a black/green blend, and I think that holds here. Despite that, it is a nicely almondy tea, and definitely one of the more almondy ones I’ve encountered over the years. It does have a marzipanny feel and a bit of an apricot hint, which really brightens up the sip, but I just wish it was on a yummier base. Still, it’s tasty and one of the few teas I’ve found that’s really almondy enough for me!

This was a mistaken tea. I actually ordered the Caramel Roasted Almond black tea, but they sent this instead, and I never heard back from them when I emailed about the mix up. So I’ll shrug it off and drink this one; at least it’s still almond.

The dry leaf smells powerfully almondy like almond extract or very strong marzipan. So far, so good. The sweet almond/marzipan aroma is still present in the steeped tea along with a richer, nuttier aroma which I feel like is the black tea (Ceylon, yay) making itself known. And finally, the marzipan carries over to the taste, which, if you don’t know, is exactly what I look for in an almond tea (but rarely have found). The flavor is very almondy, but the tea base is a little bipolar. Black/Green blends are always tricky, and under the best of circumstances they combine the richness of the black tea with the freshness of the green tea. This one the bases seem a bit muddled, and I kind of wish it was a black only base. Nevertheless, I am shocked by how much I am enjoying this tea. I wasn’t really expecting much based on the other teas I’ve had from this company. Different wholesaler on this one, I guess. As it cools I am getting a tart, fruity, almost apricot flavor at the front of the sip. As far as almond teas go, I still prefer my Marzipan from the Tea House in London, but as I can’t get that one without going to London, this is an impressive second option. I do wish I could try the Caramel Roasted Almond as well now.

I used this tea to make muffins before I even drank it. But, it was awesome in them, so it would figure it was even more delicious to drink. It reminded me of a Mounds bar in tea form. Neither flavor overpowered the other, I could taste both chocolate and coconut. Definitely tastes like it would be more indulgent than it really is. I wish it was freezing outside because I think it would make an amazing ice cream too so then it could be a bit bad!

Ugh… I am currently on some antibiotics which are not kind to one’s stomach, so I was unsure I’d even want any tea today, but I’m doing ok for the moment. Still, I wanted something that might be light and definitely non-upsetting. I chose this new tea, but I forgot what the description was like when I ordered it. Really, Jasmine Lemon doesn’t seem to be the right name for this tea, since it’s really more of a bouquet of all kinds of florals. The tea is full of flower petals and buds of all kinds along with fairly long green and white tea leaves. The aroma is a slightly worrisome artificial sweet-tart fruit candy scent, but I’ve smelled that aroma in dry leaves before and it doesn’t always turn out poorly.

After brewing my tea is a pale yellow with some dusty bits; they are likely small pieces from all of the whole flowers in the leaf. The scent is much more subdued, but still with the same general profile. This tea does taste familiar, but I can’t place it. It’s definitely sweet-tart and slightly fruity in a very floral way. I don’t, however, get any distinct notes; no jasmine, and definitely no lemon. This is the second tea from this company that I’ve tried, and though I’m pretty sure they don’t blend in-house, the teas definitely err on the side of lots of somewhat artificial flavoring that pretty much obliterates any flavors from the tea itself.

ARGH. I just figured out where I know this tea from. It appears to be identical, minus the sencha, to the Macabeo tea from ESP Emporium that I have had and not really enjoyed. A sniff test of both teas confirms that they have the same aroma profile. Interestingly, I do seem to enjoy this one better than the ESP version, but only slightly. Curses! Foiled by a new, tempting name. This is exactly why I wish I knew where the tea was coming from in these places… now I have 2 more ounces of a tea I never would have bought if I had known what it really was.

And with that ringing endorsement, does anyone want any of this? Free to a good home; I have way too much tea right now to have this one languishing in my cupboard.

I had a groupon for this tea company that was expiring in about a month, so I went ahead and bought the tea while I was already buying tea from other places. So expect a lot of new teas here for a while, because I have a ton of stuff to try!

Before my travels, I was really getting into oolongs, so a lot of my new teas are oolongs. I’ve always wanted to try the Raspberry Oolong from AC Perch’s, which is supposed to be awesome. Funny, that there aren’t very many raspberry oolongs out there from any tea company, but this one happened to have one, so I had to get some. The dry leaf pretty much hits you over the head with berry aroma. Sure, raspberry, but also just tons of all kinds of sweet-tart berries. There doesn’t seem to be any berry pieces in the dry leaf, but there is some kind of pinky-red petal in there… possibly hibiscus or rosehips, which is a bit surprising. Nibbling on a dry petal makes me think hibiscus. There aren’t very many of them in there, so we’ll see how they affect the steeped tea.

The tea brewed up really light yellow (no pinkness), and it smells tart-fruity and a bit floral. There’s also a bit of that green oolongy aroma in there. Despite the light color, the taste is pretty full. I’m enjoying it, but I do think it’s a tea that might not be for everyone. The raspberry flavoring is quite strong, especially as it cools, and it kind of drowns out the oolong itself, though I feel that it’s definitely lending a floral character to the fruit. And I can’t decide whether the flavoring might taste a bit artificial. I don’t get any hibiscus or that it’s too tart from this. Actually the aftertaste is rather sweet. Nevertheless, I am enjoying the pot and I will have no problem drinking up my ounces of this.

To break in a brand new, pretty glass pitcher, I made more tea than ever before! I split making it into two batches, so I could resteep the tea in order to not use as much at once. It worked out well. I’ve got maybe 4 cups left..oops. It’s a nice light tea, sometimes the pomegranate isn’t very apparent, and sometimes it makes it taste a bit like cherry jello. It’s good though, but it might be even better with an addition of a splash of pomegranate juice!

Just used the last of this tea up, it feels like an accomplishment!
Decided to go the iced tea route with this too. It didn’t get bitter despite the brew time, and I let it cool all the way down before drinking any.

I think I prefer it as a hot tea, but it is decent iced. It has a very clean taste. The blueberry is there, but it’s not a heavy flavor.

One thing that amused me though: In Paris I picked up what is essentially a tea ball with a rubber duck on top. I used him to brew this, and it looked like he was bleeding profusely in the water at first!